The Create Your Day Podcast

99. Fire, Ready, Aim: How Successful Entrepreneurs Actually Build Businesses

• Jenn Cody • Episode 99

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Planning paralysis keeps entrepreneurs stuck in endless preparation without implementation, causing expensive procrastination instead of real business growth. The addiction to planning feels productive but prevents facing the reality of putting ourselves out there where actual learning happens.

• Expensive procrastination happens when we create beautiful business plans without taking action
• Planning addiction feels safe but is often sophisticated avoidance of risking failure or judgment
• The planning myth makes us believe success requires perfect plans but real business growth happens through testing and adjusting
• "Fire, Ready, Aim" works better than "Ready, Aim, Fire" in the real world of business building
• Planning has deadlines and leads to action; plotting is open-ended and leads to more plotting
• Creating a one-page clarity document focusing on the problem, audience, and solution is more effective
• Take one action in the next 48 hours to break planning paralysis – offer a service, create a simple product, or publish content




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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody. Welcome to episode 99. And what we're talking about today is expensive procrastination. Yep, I have a confession to make.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to my business, I have written so many notes, so many business plans, so many audits, all of the things right, I can actually probably wallpaper the room I'm in right now with all of it. And they're beautiful, they're detailed, they are impressive, they're documents with charts and projections and mission statements, value words, all the things that are really important, and they make it sound like I am just running the best Fortune 500 company, like I am just running the best Fortune 500 company. But I want to be really honest with this confession, because what I did with all of that information, with most of that information, is actually nothing, absolutely nothing. They are sitting in my Google Drive in my trash can hopefully not judging me, but it's pages and pages of pure intention and zero implementation. I know I'm not alone in this. There are lots of you out there doing the exact same thing. And, honestly, it gets even worse because I used to feel really good about writing these plans, like really, really good. I would spend weeks crafting strategy, researching my target market, creating those elaborate financial projections that are hopeful math, and when I was done I would sit back and think I am just killing it. Look at me, I am like entrepreneur chef's kiss. And then the next day or the next week I would open up my laptop. And where do you even start with all that? You know like, when I look at some of the earlier days in my business planning and I look at phrases like increased brand awareness, what does that mean? What does that mean when it's you know the next day and I have three client calls, I'm trying to finish a presentation and there's no real direction in those words and what's happening? There is addiction to planning. I come up against this with a lot of the people that I work with. So I think you're going to find that you can see yourself in what I'm about to tell you.

Speaker 1:

One of the people that I'm working with currently came to me and had spent a good amount of time let's say six to eight, 10 months and she was creating a comprehensive business strategy. She had her market research. She had done a lot of things, like she did her competitor analysis. She had her avatars, her detailed personas for her customers, a brand identity guide, financial projections for I want to say it was almost the next five years, if not 10 years and she had a full marketing plan. It referenced every single platform. There was a plan for LinkedIn, a plan for Instagram, a plan for Facebook, and it was thorough information, it was complete, it was beautiful, it was crafted in Canva, with all the things and really, really nice to look at.

Speaker 1:

But at the end of the day, it was actually kind of useless, because when I asked her what she had done with any of this, she looked at me like I was crazy because she was in the I'm going to use my air quotes again in the planning phase and I need to make sure everything is figured out before I move forward is what she said to me. So all of that planning and she hadn't actually spoken to a single potential client. She had not created a single piece of content, she had not made one offer to anyone anywhere. She was planning to start planning, or maybe think about starting, or planning to start thinking, I don't know, but there was a lot of wheels turning with no actual traction. But you know what's happening during that time, right, and I know that right now there's lots of you shaking your head. Yes, you have done this. You've been there. You might be on your laptop while you're listening to this creating a new LinkedIn strategy plan and you feel productive, right. So did my client. She felt, during those, let's say, eight months, super productive. She felt like she was working on her business. She was busy, she was thinking strategically and she was being really thorough. And she's not wrong. She was doing all those things. But I want you to ask yourself the same question. I asked her Are you building anything? And the answer was no.

Speaker 1:

We have been really sold a myth that in order for a business to be successful, the plan needs to be perfect. That somewhere whether it's in a boardroom, a coffee shop, you know, on a treadmill, somewhere someone is mapping out exactly how their business will unfold and then, poof, like magic, that's exactly how it's going to unfold. But that's never what really happens. What does happen is that someone has an idea. They try it. It fails. They adjust that idea, they try again. Maybe they fail again and maybe they fail in a different way. So they adjust again and eventually they stumble onto what works, and that is when they write the business plan that they thought they were writing in the very beginning. I know that's how it happened for me.

Speaker 1:

I think that if I go back to the last seven years of my life, how many times I created something and put it out there, and created something and put it out there and would spend months like trying to put together an online course? There are definitely people listening right now who were on one of my first retreats, and during that retreat I had an entire presentation I was going to share with people on a program that I thought people were somehow going to want to buy. And looking back now, I can't even believe that. I thought that this was going to be a thing, but at this point and this stage in my entrepreneurial journey, it now makes perfect sense because we need to go through those motions, we need to try things and fail at them so that we can learn. And I don't think it was until that moment, and that was one of many moments where I realized you know, the business plan actually comes after the business and we've got it backwards because we think that we're supposed to sit down and plan our way to success, but we do not plan for success, we experiment our way to success.

Speaker 1:

I learned this the hard way because, I'm telling you, when I put that presentation together on my retreat basically telling everyone, I knew what I wanted to provide them. I knew the transformation that I could give them. I spent months creating what I was convinced was the perfect course outline. It was every you know all the research that I did over what people may object to, creating content for different learning styles, anticipating all the questions someone might have. And do you know how many people purchased that course? No one, zero. And I had an audience. It wasn't where I was like, oh, I'm going to make something and just put it out into the world where no one's listening. No, no, no. I was on a retreat that people paid to come to because they trusted me. So in my mind, that meant I had a solid business plan, and that was the plan I used to try and create this course, which, of course, bombed. But the reason why is because I created it in a vacuum. But the reason why is because I created it in a vacuum. I planned based on what I thought people needed instead of what they actually needed, and all of that planning just made me more and more attached to an idea that didn't work. What I really needed to do was listen to the people that were in my world and stop procrastinating over doing the actual work.

Speaker 1:

Planning has now this like sophisticated form of avoidance, and I'm going to tell you why. Planning feels safe. Planning feels productive. We can spend months planning and we won't ever have to face the reality of actually putting ourselves out there. We never have to risk failure. We never have to risk being embarrassed. We never have to risk what our friends and family are going to think of us, because we're still in the preparation phase, so there's nothing to actually risk. Planning is what lets us feel like entrepreneurs without actually being anything. It's like cosplaying business ownership. We get to research, we strategize, we create mood boards and we feel super important, but we're not actually dealing with any of the messy reality that comes with serving the people that we are meant to serve, and I totally understand Putting yourself out there.

Speaker 1:

It's terrifying, because what if nobody wants what you're offering? What if you're not as good as you think you are? And worse, what if you fail publicly and everyone sees right? I go back to like the days of early Instagram, where people would put but maybe people still do this, I don't know. But you would put something out on Instagram and if it didn't get the traction that you wanted, you would delete it because you didn't want anybody to see that your picture had no likes or no comments. But we have to put ourselves out there if we want to build something worth building. And these businesses that all of you are out there thinking of and all of you are out there thinking of and all of you are out there like holding back on because you don't want to expose yourself. Expose yourself. That's where the magic happens, because we need actual achievements. What's really terrifying is spending years preparing and never starting. What's really terrifying is reaching the end with a bunch of perfect plans and no actual achievement.

Speaker 1:

So how do we break this right? Because we created this culture where more information feels like better decisions and that is not a sentence. More information is not better decisions. We want to research and analyze and compare until we're drowning in data, but we're not actually any closer to doing something. So I watch people and work with people, and I'm watching them spend weeks and weeks and weeks researching the perfect email marketing platform. I have a client who has spent countless hours researching CRMs because she's not sure which one to focus on, and creating all these spreadsheets, comparing features and reading reviews and watching tutorials. Yes, when you are going to invest in something, you want to know what you're investing in. But doing all of this and consistently asking for opinions, by the time you finally choose, you're exhausted because you're not really choosing anything. You're just choosing to continue planning.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about what a successful entrepreneur does. They look at something that meets their basic needs, fits their investment budget, and they choose it. They start building right away. If we think about, like an email list, they start building the email list right away because done is better than perfect. Six months later, maybe they've learned that they want a different platform. They want to switch things around Great, but they have now a starting point. They have an email list to actually move to the other platform. They're going to switch with real data about what they need, not just these theoretical concerns that we make up along the way, because the goal is not to make perfect decisions. The goal is to make decisions and then make them work for us, or pivot if they're not working for us.

Speaker 1:

I don't want you to think that I'm against planning, because I'm not. Planning is very important, but there's a difference between planning and plotting. So planning it's strategic, it's thinking through the goals, understanding your resources, making conscious choices about how to spend your time, how to spend your energy, and good planning helps you work smarter, not harder. Plotting is what happens when planning becomes an end in itself, when you're spending more time thinking about your business than actually doing your business. If all you're doing is thinking about it, what's actually being done when research becomes a substitute for action, instead of the actual precursor to action? And here's how you're going to tell the difference. Planning has deadlines. Planning leads to an action step that you see through. Plotting is kind of open-ended and it just leads to more plotting. So if you've been planning anything whether it's your business, whether it's redecorating your home, planning a party, whatever if you've been planning something for more than a month and you're not taking steps towards completion, you're not planning, you're plotting, and that is simply procrastination. That's all it is. So I want you to think of this.

Speaker 1:

We talk about like ready, aim, fire, right. Traditional business advice tells us ready, then aim, then fire. We want to do our research, want to create the plan and we want to execute the plan. It sounds really logical, but it doesn't work in the real world. Really logical, but it doesn't work in the real world, and that I can promise you. In the real world. We use fire ready aim, we start with imperfect action, we learn from the results and then we adjust our strategy based on data instead of projections. This just happened to me with a client that we were working on, and that's actually where I came up with this analogy, because we're trying to pivot in this company, right, we're trying to move in a different direction, get some things off the ground so we can know what's really going to work, what we're going to do with this new program that we're going to do. One of the comments I got back was it kind of feels like fire ready aim instead of ready aim fire, and that's exactly right.

Speaker 1:

But when we do ready aim fire, how long does it actually take us to get ready? Think about it. If we're taking forever to get ready and fix our aim and never firing, what are we getting? Absolutely nothing. When we fire, first we take informed action and then we learn from it and we say, oh, wait a minute, this didn't work. Great, let's go in another direction. This worked really well Great. Let's go in another direction. This worked really well Great. Let's double down on that and do more of it. We can't do that unless we fire.

Speaker 1:

So all of the things that you thought you knew about business and growing your business and scaling your business, they will never come to be. If you are waiting for perfection before you fire, if you're always waiting and never firing first, it's not happening. I'm telling you, when you fire first you put something out into the world and then you learn from the response. Guess what happens next? The next time you do it, your aim is even better. And I know this feels backwards. I know it feels uncomfortable, especially if you're a perfectionist, which many entrepreneurs are. But it's how real businesses get built. You learn by doing, not by thinking about doing. So let's get really practical about this.

Speaker 1:

I want you to look at any planning you've been doing and ask yourself these questions how long have I been planning this without taking action? Be honest with yourself. I'm sure for some of you it's going to be a couple of days, but for some of you it's going to be a couple of months, a couple of years. What am I afraid will happen if I start before the plan is perfect? What am I afraid will happen if I start before the plan is perfect? What are you afraid is going to happen if you start before it's perfect? What's the smallest step you could take to test this right now, and what real-world information do you need that you can only get by trying something? I want you to be really honest with these answers, because if you've been planning for more than a few weeks, you're just procrastinating. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So now let's talk about business clarity, because instead of a 47-page business plan, I want you to create something that is one page. This is going to be your clarity document, and here's what goes on it. What's the problem? You're solving? Just one page. This is going to be your clarity document, and here's what goes on it. What's the problem? You're solving Just one sentence. What's the problem? Then I want you to write who has this problem. Then how will you solve it? How are you going to reach the people who have this problem so that you can solve it? How can you make money solving it, and what's the first thing you'll do to test if this works? That's the most important question, because all of the first questions anybody that is trying to grow a business.

Speaker 1:

You've done this exercise before. What's the problem you're solving? Who are you serving? How are you solving their problem? What's the problem you're solving? Who are you serving? How are you solving their problem? You know these answers.

Speaker 1:

It's the last question that makes the difference. What are you going to do to test to see if this works? That's it. It all needs to fit on one page. If it doesn't fit on one page, it's too complicated. So keep simplifying it. Go to ChatGPT, go to Claudeai, put it in there, ask it. Simplify, simplify, simplify, because the goal is not to have all the answers. The goal is to get clear on the basics so that you can start testing and learning. Right, this is what makes the difference. So let's do a challenge for the next 48 hours. It's a little uncomfortable, but that's how you know it's important, right?

Speaker 1:

I want you to take a business idea and I want you to do something, just something, with it in the next 48 hours. Don't plan to do something, actually do something. So let's say it's a service business, offer that service to one person for free, in exchange for their testimony, in exchange for their feedback. So it's very simple. Look in your phone, pick up your iPhone. Right now, the first person that comes to mind that it might be helpful to call them up, send them a text. I'd like to offer you this for free. I would love for you to help me and give me your feedback. Let me know what you think about it.

Speaker 1:

If it's a product business, create the simplest version of the product. You can Create the simplest version of the product. You can Show it to five people. Maybe you have a content-based business. Create one piece of content and publish it. That's it. Send it to Medium, publish it on LinkedIn and publish it. That's it. Send it to Medium, publish it on LinkedIn, publish it on Facebook, anything. Just take that one piece of content and actually publish it. If it's an online course that you're building, can you teach one of the concepts to one person in 30 minutes? Again, look through your phone book. Who's in my phone that I can call and say can I offer you something for free in exchange for 30 minutes of your time to teach you something?

Speaker 1:

The specific action doesn't matter. It's really breaking the planning paralysis that we're after. I want you to move from thinking about your business to doing in your business, so that's your goal for the next 48 hours is to just do this one step. We're going to come back next week and talk about all the other actions that need to happen, but for now, can we just focus on 48 hours, one action in your business. I would love to hear what it is. So you could find me on Instagram at Solutions by Jen Cody. You can email me at Jen J-E-N-N at JenCodycom. But whatever you do, don't let it go. Don't let this just slip by, so that it's not something that you're focused on. 48 hours, one action Okay, thank you so much for spending time with me this week.

Speaker 1:

I hope it was helpful for you. I look forward to hearing what you guys are doing in your businesses. Please respond. Get those answers back to me, because when you respond and give me that feedback, I'm able to create more valuable stuff for you guys. So take this with you. Go out there, create the day and the business that you deserve and that you want and that you will live your best life with, and I will see you here this time next week. Have a great one, everyone. Until next time. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Bye-bye.